Nabokov exhibition is part of the centenary festival

Above: The poem "Wanted, Wanted: Dolores Haze" appears on the rear endpapers of Vladimir Nabokov's own copy of his published Poems (1961). The poem is annotated for performance, with "5 min." noted in his hand on the upper margin of the left page. This book was recently acquired and donated to the Rare and Manuscript Collections by Jon A. Lindseth '56. Below: Nabokov drew this butterfly for his wife, Véra, in a copy of his second published work, Al'manakh: Dva puti [An Almanac: Two Paths], privately printed in St. Petersburg in 1918. This book, the only known copy in an American library, also was recently acquired and donated by Lindseth. Both are on display in the Nabokov Centenary Exhibition.

Cornell Library is celebrating the upcoming 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Nabokov (April 23, 1899) with an exhibition on his life and work. Drawn from the holdings of Cornell's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, the exhibition is on display through Sept. 30.

The Vladimir Nabokov Centenary Exhibition can be viewed Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., in the Kroch Library gallery located on the central Cornell campus. Beginning Sept. 5, the exhibition also will be open on Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, call the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at 255-3530 or visit the division's web site at <http://rmc.library.cornell.edu>.

This exhibition is part of Cornell's Nabokov Centenary Festival, a three-day celebration hosted by the university's Department of Russian Literature, which will be held Sept. 10 to 12 on campus. Cornell's Nabokov Festival is the first of many such events to take place in the coming year, as cultural institutions around the world herald the contributions of one of the century's literary geniuses.

This summer also marks the 50th anniversary of Nabokov's arrival in Ithaca on July 1, 1948, to take up the post of associate professor of Russian literature at Cornell. Nabokov spent more than 10 years in Ithaca, a period which saw his transformation from a respected but not widely known émigré writer to one of the most successful authors of the 20th century.

The books, manuscripts and photographs in Cornell Library's exhibition chronicle Nabokov's life and his achievements as a writer, scholar and teacher ­ beginning with his boyhood in Russia and his 20s and 30s in Berlin and Paris, to the flight with his young family to the United States in 1940 and his 20 years in America.

The highlights of the exhibition are the literary works Nabokov produced while he was at Cornell. Despite a heavy teaching schedule, he completed a surprisingly large body of work in Ithaca, including some of the richest and most enduring of his career.

In 1953 alone he had three major translation projects in process: the 12th-century Russian epic The Song of Igor's Campaign, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin into English and the translation of his own memoirs, Conclusive Evidence, into Russian.

At the same time, Lolita was a nearly completed typescript, and his outline for Pnin was taking shape.

During his years in Ithaca, Nabokov spent much time reading and working in the libraries at Cornell and was well-known among the students as a lecturer not to be missed. Included in Cornell Library's exhibition are books that once were a part of the Nabokov family library ­ several of which contain his own annotations, emendations and drawings. These unique volumes, of incalculable value to present and future scholars, were recently purchased for Cornell Library through the generosity of a group of alumni, many of whom remember the famous author as a teacher. Also on display are some of Nabokov's own hand-labeled butterfly specimens, on loan from the Cornell Insect Collection.

In addition to the Kroch Library exhibition, the festival will include a three-day scholarly conference drawing participants from all over the world, a commemorative plaque dedication ceremony at the office Nabokov occupied during his Cornell tenure and the performance of Dear Bunny/Dear Volodya, a dramatic dialogue based on the Nabokov-Edmund Wilson correspondence, adapted by Terry Quinn and featuring Nabokov's son, Dmitri Nabokov, in the role of his father and William F. Buckley Jr. in the role of Wilson. There also will be a Nabokov-related concert of music, including a song recital by Dmitri Nabokov, who was formally trained as an opera singer.

For more information on the Nabokov Centenary Festival, which is free and open to the public, contact Jenka Fyfe in the Department of Russian Literature at 255-8350 or <jtf11@cornell.edu>.